The problem is that armor only takes damage when struck, I don't think I can get the parachute to work quite right as armor. And armor is rendered in the player render code. It would be nice if it was a render class of it's own.

I have not tried the Zombie Awareness mod, so I don't know. The Walking Dead mod pretty much takes over the spawning of the walkers. The default setting is to not spawn zombies. Let us know if you decide to try it.